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Christian Brauner b3e5838252
clone: add CLONE_PIDFD
This patchset makes it possible to retrieve pid file descriptors at
process creation time by introducing the new flag CLONE_PIDFD to the
clone() system call.  Linus originally suggested to implement this as a
new flag to clone() instead of making it a separate system call.  As
spotted by Linus, there is exactly one bit for clone() left.

CLONE_PIDFD creates file descriptors based on the anonymous inode
implementation in the kernel that will also be used to implement the new
mount api.  They serve as a simple opaque handle on pids.  Logically,
this makes it possible to interpret a pidfd differently, narrowing or
widening the scope of various operations (e.g. signal sending).  Thus, a
pidfd cannot just refer to a tgid, but also a tid, or in theory - given
appropriate flag arguments in relevant syscalls - a process group or
session. A pidfd does not represent a privilege.  This does not imply it
cannot ever be that way but for now this is not the case.

A pidfd comes with additional information in fdinfo if the kernel supports
procfs.  The fdinfo file contains the pid of the process in the callers
pid namespace in the same format as the procfs status file, i.e. "Pid:\t%d".

As suggested by Oleg, with CLONE_PIDFD the pidfd is returned in the
parent_tidptr argument of clone.  This has the advantage that we can
give back the associated pid and the pidfd at the same time.

To remove worries about missing metadata access this patchset comes with
a sample program that illustrates how a combination of CLONE_PIDFD, and
pidfd_send_signal() can be used to gain race-free access to process
metadata through /proc/<pid>.  The sample program can easily be
translated into a helper that would be suitable for inclusion in libc so
that users don't have to worry about writing it themselves.

Suggested-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <christian@brauner.io>
Co-developed-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirsky <luto@kernel.org>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@cyphar.com>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
2019-05-07 14:31:03 +02:00
arch Make anon_inodes unconditional 2019-04-19 14:03:11 +02:00
block block: Revert v5.0 blk_mq_request_issue_directly() changes 2019-04-05 09:40:46 -06:00
certs kexec, KEYS: Make use of platform keyring for signature verify 2019-02-04 17:34:07 -05:00
crypto lib/lzo: separate lzo-rle from lzo 2019-03-07 18:32:03 -08:00
Documentation ARM: SoC fixes 2019-04-07 13:46:17 -10:00
drivers Make anon_inodes unconditional 2019-04-19 14:03:11 +02:00
fs Make anon_inodes unconditional 2019-04-19 14:03:11 +02:00
include clone: add CLONE_PIDFD 2019-05-07 14:31:03 +02:00
init Make anon_inodes unconditional 2019-04-19 14:03:11 +02:00
ipc Merge branch 'work.mount' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2019-03-12 14:08:19 -07:00
kernel clone: add CLONE_PIDFD 2019-05-07 14:31:03 +02:00
lib Merge branch 'akpm' (patches from Andrew) 2019-04-05 17:08:55 -10:00
LICENSES LICENSES: Add GCC runtime library exception text 2019-01-16 14:54:15 -07:00
mm mm/util.c: fix strndup_user() comment 2019-04-05 16:02:31 -10:00
net Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2019-04-04 18:07:12 -10:00
samples Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2019-03-11 08:54:01 -07:00
scripts fs: stream_open - opener for stream-like files so that read and write can run simultaneously without deadlock 2019-04-06 07:01:55 -10:00
security LSM: Revive CONFIG_DEFAULT_SECURITY_* for "make oldconfig" 2019-03-29 14:08:49 -07:00
sound sound fixes for 5.1-rc3 2019-03-29 14:53:33 -07:00
tools Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net 2019-04-04 18:07:12 -10:00
usr user/Makefile: Fix typo and capitalization in comment section 2018-12-11 00:18:03 +09:00
virt KVM/ARM fixes for 5.1 2019-03-28 19:07:30 +01:00
.clang-format Merge branch 'work.iov_iter' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/viro/vfs 2019-03-12 13:43:42 -07:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set git diff driver for C source code files 2016-10-07 18:46:30 -07:00
.gitignore kbuild: Add support for DT binding schema checks 2018-12-13 09:41:32 -06:00
.mailmap Update Nicolas Pitre's email address 2019-04-02 18:12:44 -10:00
COPYING COPYING: use the new text with points to the license files 2018-03-23 12:41:45 -06:00
CREDITS Char/Misc driver patches for 5.1-rc1 2019-03-06 14:18:59 -08:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v5.1 2019-03-10 17:48:21 -07:00
Kconfig kconfig: move the "Executable file formats" menu to fs/Kconfig.binfmt 2018-08-02 08:06:55 +09:00
MAINTAINERS MAINTAINERS: add maintainer and replacing reviewer ARM/NUVOTON NPCM 2019-04-05 16:02:31 -10:00
Makefile Linux 5.1-rc4 2019-04-07 14:09:59 -10:00
README Drop all 00-INDEX files from Documentation/ 2018-09-09 15:08:58 -06:00

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.